The Elderly Also Deserves to Undergo Therapeutic Endoscopy Safely under Sedation with Propofol by Gastroenterologists

As many therapeutic endoscopic procedures are invasive, time-consuming, and has the risk of complications, adequate sedation is mandatory for safe procedure. The methods of seda-tion are variable from weak sedation with small doses of narcot-ics to general anesthesia. For therapeutic endoscopic procedures, benzodiazepines or propofol with/without narcotics have been most commonly used for sedation.1 Although propofol is short and rapid acting, and not associat-ed with higher risk of complications compared with benzodiaz-epines, the complications such as respiratory and/or circulatory distress may be higher in the elderly who are more vulnerable to deep sedation.2 And the sedation by gastroenterologists may have more complications by deep sedation than that by anes-thesiologists because the gastroenterologists may not monitor the patients closely by the endoscopic procedure itself.